FRAMINGHAM - Framingham State University has selected a contractor for its proposed $37 million new dorm, according to a school administrator who also said officials are hoping to bring down the cost of the project.

In addition, the university picked a company to undertake $4.3 million worth of renovations to Framingham State's Maple Street athletic fields, said Dale Hamel, the school's executive vice president of administration, finance and information technology.

Both projects will be completed over the next several years, culminating with the opening of the new residence hall in 2016.

The playing fields project will get underway first, with construction slated to begin next month. Holliston-based general contractor Colantonio is managing the work, which involves replacing the existing football field off the western end of Maple Street with a new synthetic turf field and the current grass practice field with a combination softball field and multi-sport synthetic turf field.

The football field is scheduled to be done in time for the start of the Rams' practices in August, while the softball field should be ready by the spring of 2015, according to Colantonio, which is also overseeing the construction of a new press box system, bleachers, concession and storage buildings, fencing, netting, and scoreboard at the complex.

Construction of the new dorm, which the university plans to put in the existing Maynard Road parking lot, is tentatively slated to start in March 2015, according to Hamel. The residence hall will have 238 beds, which are intended to replace 241 beds at O'Connor Hall the university is converting to faculty office space.

Framingham State, through the Massachusetts State College Building Authority, picked Milford-based Consigli Construction for the project, which also built the school's last new dorm, North Hall, three years ago. The company's bid was especially attractive, Hamel said, because it was willing to look at options to make construction cheaper.

"That ($37 million) cost is based on the standard approach to building a facility of that size," he said, adding the relatively long timetable for the project could allow the university to explore lower cost possibilities like panelization, a construction approach based on assembling prefabricated sections of the building.

The new dorm is expected to eat up around a third of the 430 parking spots at the Maynard Road lot. Those will be replaced by a new parking lot Framingham State intends to build across the street on Salem End Road this year.

Scott O'Connell can be reached at 508-626-4449 or soconnell@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottOConnellMW